India vs Pakistan Asian Games 2026 Final: India Win Cricket Gold by 19 Runs
India's men's cricket team won the gold medal at the Asian Games 2026, beating Pakistan by 19 runs in the final at Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture, on Saturday, 3 October 2026. India won the toss, batted first and posted 211/6, powered by Abhishek Sharma's 61 and an unbeaten 51 from Tilak Varma. Pakistan finished on 192/6 despite a superb 96 off 51 balls from Hasan Nawaz, who was dismissed off the last ball of the match. The win means India, led by Shreyas Iyer, successfully defended the title they won at Hangzhou 2023, while Pakistan took the silver medal.
India vs Pakistan Final: Result, Date and Venue
The men's cricket event at the Asian Games 2026 was played in the T20 format across 10 teams, from 24 September to 3 October 2026. As per the official match schedule published by the Aichi-Nagoya organising committee, the bronze medal match was played first on the final day at 9:00 AM local time, followed by the gold medal match at 1:30 PM. Every match of the tournament was held at Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Match | India vs Pakistan, Men's Cricket Final (Gold Medal Match) |
| Result | India won by 19 runs |
| Format | Twenty20 (T20) |
| Date | Saturday, 3 October 2026 |
| Start Time | 1:30 PM JST · 10:00 AM IST · 9:30 AM PKT |
| Venue | Korogi Sports Park, Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture, Japan |
| Toss | India won the toss and chose to bat first |
| Medals | Gold: India · Silver: Pakistan |
To see where India stands across all sports at the Games, check our Asian Games 2026 medal tally.
Asian Games 2026 Medal Tally
Check the latest Asian Games 2026 medal standings with country-wise rankings, gold medals, total medals and India's current position.
How India Beat Pakistan: Match Summary and Scorecard
| Team | Score | Top Performers |
|---|---|---|
| India (batted first) | 211/6 in 20 overs | Abhishek Sharma 61 (28), Tilak Varma 51* (22), Shivam Dube 27 |
| Pakistan | 192/6 in 20 overs (target 212) | Hasan Nawaz 96 (51), Saim Ayub 29 (22) |
| Result | India won by 19 runs and won the gold medal | |
India's Innings: 211/6
Choosing to bat, India lost Vaibhav Sooryavanshi early for 15 off 9 balls, but Abhishek Sharma took the attack to Pakistan with 61 off 28 balls, which included three fours and seven sixes, before he was stumped. Shreyas Iyer made 21 and Ishan Kishan 20, while Sanju Samson was out for 2. Tilak Varma then finished the innings in style with an unbeaten 51 off 22 balls, including four sixes, and Shivam Dube added 27 as India crossed 200 in the 20th over and ended on 211/6.
Pakistan's Chase: 192/6
Needing 212, Pakistan lost Sahibzada Farhan, Usman Khan and Maaz Sadaqat inside the first seven overs and were 39/3. Saim Ayub and Hasan Nawaz then added 87 for the fourth wicket to keep the chase alive, with Nawaz reaching his fifty off 28 balls. Dube broke the stand by removing Ayub for 29, and Abdul Samad fell at 162/5 in the 18th over.
Pakistan still needed 33 off the last six balls, and Nawaz kept fighting until the end. He was caught behind off Dube on the very last ball for 96 off 51 balls, four runs short of a century, and that wicket sealed India's gold.
The ball-by-ball record is available in the full scorecard on ESPNcricinfo.
How India and Pakistan Reached the Final
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were the four seeded teams in the men's event, and the draw was built so that India and Pakistan could not meet before the medal matches. As seeds, both teams skipped the group stage and entered the tournament at the quarter-final stage.
Neither side had to play a ball in that round. Heavy rain in Nisshin on 28 September washed out both India's quarter-final against Afghanistan and Pakistan's quarter-final against Hong Kong, China, so India and Pakistan moved into the semi-finals on the strength of their higher seeding.
| Stage | India | Pakistan |
|---|---|---|
| Quarter-final (28 September) | vs Afghanistan - abandoned due to rain, India advanced as the higher seed | vs Hong Kong, China - abandoned due to rain, Pakistan advanced as the higher seed |
| Semi-final (1 October) | Beat Sri Lanka by 124 runs | Beat Bangladesh by six wickets |
| Final (3 October) | India beat Pakistan by 19 runs | |
India's Semi-final Win
Batting first against Sri Lanka, India made 169 for 7, built around an unbeaten 80 off 46 balls from Ishan Kishan and a quick 38 off 21 from Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Jasprit Bumrah struck early with the ball and India bowled Sri Lanka out for just 45 in 9.5 overs, a margin of 124 runs.
Pakistan's Semi-final Win
Pakistan overcame Bangladesh by six wickets in the first semi-final to reach the final of the men's event for the first time.
India and Pakistan Squads for the Asian Games 2026
Both teams originally named 15-member squads for the Games, and a few changes were made before the tournament. India's group now stands at 14 players and Pakistan's at 15. India lost Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana to injury and replaced them with Vipraj Nigam and Yash Thakur, while Nitish Kumar Reddy was withdrawn to join India's home series against the West Indies. For Pakistan, Salman Mirza was ruled out through injury and replaced by Mohammad Wasim Jr.
| Team | Captain | Vice-captain | Rest of the Squad |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | Shreyas Iyer | Tilak Varma | Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vipraj Nigam |
| Pakistan | Sahibzada Farhan | Abdul Samad | Saim Ayub, Usman Khan (wk), Hasan Nawaz, Haider Ali, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Abrar Ahmed, Sufyan Moqim, Ahmed Daniyal, Akif Javed, Arafat Minhas, Saad Masood, Maaz Sadaqat, Ali Raza |
The full squad lists of all ten teams are available on the Wikipedia page for the men's cricket tournament.
Asian Games Cricket Background and Recent India vs Pakistan Meetings
Cricket returned to the Asian Games for the fourth time in 2026, after Guangzhou 2010, Incheon 2014 and Hangzhou 2023. India did not take part in the first two editions, but they won the men's gold at Hangzhou 2023 when their final against Afghanistan was abandoned because of rain and the title was awarded to India on the strength of their higher ranking. Pakistan lost that tournament's semi-final to Afghanistan and then the bronze medal match to Bangladesh.
The two sides last met in a final in the 2025 Asia Cup in Dubai on 28 September 2025, the first Asia Cup final ever played between them, where India won by five wickets with an unbeaten 69 from Tilak Varma. The Nisshin final was also their first men's cricket meeting at an Asian Games, and this time India won the gold on the field rather than on ranking.
What This Win Means
- India have won back-to-back men's cricket gold medals at the Asian Games, after Hangzhou 2023 and Nisshin 2026
- India's women's team had already won cricket gold at these Games on 22 September 2026, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs, so India took both cricket golds in Nisshin
- Pakistan reached their first men's Asian Games final and took the silver medal, with Hasan Nawaz's 96 off 51 balls the highlight of their chase
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India's gold in the men's cricket final was built on a fast 211/6 from Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube, and a bowling effort that denied Pakistan in a chase that went down to the last ball. The official fixtures and results of the tournament are published on the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 official website.